c. 600 – The Karnamuk-i-Artakhshatr-i-Papakan contains references to the Persian game of shatranj, the direct ancestor of modern Chess. Shatranj was initially called "Chatrang" in Persian (named after the Indian version), which was later renamed to shatranj.

1474 – William Caxton publishes The Game and Playe of Chesse, the first chess book in English.

1475–1525 – Castling and the modern moves for the queen and bishop are slowly adopted.

1475 – Scachs d'amor the first published game of modern chess, written as a poem.

1493 - Hartmann Schedel publishes the Nuremberg Chronicle. It mentions the invention of chess by the philosopher Xerxes in Babylon during the rule of Evil-Merodach, the son of Nebuchadrezzar and illustrates the citation with a woodcut of Xerxes.

1510 – Marco Girolamo Vida wrote Scacchia ludus (The Game of Chess) with the first reference to a goddess of chess.[3]

1512 – Pedro Damiano publishes one of the first chess treatises, Questo libro e da imparare giocare a scachi et de li partiti. One of the oldest surviving manuscripts to detail chess strategy, Damiano's work gives the earliest known refutation of an unsound chess opening. This opening, the Damiano Defense is named in his honor. The Damiano Variation of the Petrov Defense will also later be named for Damiano's work, appearing in a game in which Damiano (playing white) takes advantage of poor play by Black to fork his King and Queen.

1575 - The first known championship between Chess Masters is held in Madrid, between Italian masters Giovanni Leonardo and Paolo Boi along with Spanish masters Ruy López and Alfonso Ceron. Leonardo wins, with Boi placing second, López third, and Ceron fourth.

1620-24 - Gioachino Greco writes a number of manuscripts on Chess strategy, giving the first known descriptions of Fool's Mate and Smothered Mate, as well as detailing a number of opening traps. His overall strategy promotes aggressive play. Most of Greco's games feature the King's Gambit Accepted or Giuoco Piano, and his work is greatly influential in popularizing both of these openings throughout the rest of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.

1737 - Phillip Stamma(Syria) publishes Essai sur le jeu des échecs. The book features an early form of algebraic notation (for example, '1. e4 e5' in modern notation would be written as 'p e 5 | p e 5' in Stamma's). The first half primarily concerns opening theory, with particular emphasis on various opening gambits, and the second half gives the first detailed exploration of endgame theory.

1859 – Paul Morphy is declared unofficial world champion after two years of international play against the world's leading players in the US and Europe. However, he was unable to secure even a single game against Staunton.

1874 - Chess codexes written by 16th century Italian master Giulio Cesare Polerio are rediscovered by Antonius van der Linde. van der Linde recognizes that Polerio's work likely had greatly influenced the later works of Greco, and feature a nearly modern form of algebraic notation.

1913 – The grasshopper is the first fairy piece invented, having its origin in the Renaissance "leaping queen".

1919 – Capablanca gives a simultaneous in the House of Commons against 39 players.

1921 – The first British correspondence chess championship is held.

1921 – Capablanca defeats Lasker in Havana +4 −0 =10 to become the third official world champion. However, Lasker had resigned the title to Capablanca in 1920 and the match participants had agreed that Capablanca was the defending champion in the match.

1960 – Tal defeats Botvinnik +6 −2 =13 to become the eighth official world champion and the then youngest-ever world champion.

1961 – Botvinnik defeats Tal in a rematch by the score +10 −5 =6 to regain the title.

1962 – Tigran Petrosian(Soviet Union) wins the Candidates Tournament in Curaçao, going through the tournament without a defeat. Keres finishes second in a Candidates Tournament for the third consecutive time.

1963 – Petrosian defeats Botvinnik 12½–9½ to become the ninth World Chess Champion.

1981 – Karpov convincingly defeats challenger Viktor Korchnoi six wins to two to retain the World Championship.

1984 – In a controversial decision, the FIDE president abandons the World Championship match between defending champion Karpov and challenger Garry Kasparov(Soviet Union) after 48 games, with Karpov leading 5–3.

1985 – Kasparov defeats Karpov to become the thirteenth World Chess Champion 13–11.

1996 – Deep Blue beats Kasparov in the first game won by a chess-playing computer against a reigning world champion under normal chess tournament conditions. Kasparov recovers to win the match 4–2 (three wins, one loss, two draws).

2009 – Eighteen-year-old Magnus Carlsen(Norway) wins the super-grandmaster (Category 21) Nanjing Pearl Spring Tournament, scoring an undefeated 8–2 in the double round robin event. Carlsen's performance rating for the tournament is 3002, one of the highest in history, and his rating goes over 2800, making him the fifth player (and by far the youngest) to attain that rating level.

2009 – Kasparov and Karpov play each other once more, as a commemoration of their first World Championship Match 25 years earlier.

2014 – Carlsen reaches his top Elo rating of 2882, the highest in history, in May.

2014 – Carlsen successfully defends his title of World Champion in a match against Anand, who had won the Candidates Tournament.

2016 – Carlsen successfully defends his World Champion title against Karjakin (who had won the Candidates Tournament in Moscow in March) by winning rapid tiebreak games after drawing a 12-game classical-game match.

2018 – Carlsen successfully defends his World Champion title against Caruana by winning rapid tiebreak games after drawing a 12-game classical-game match.